Reflective Post

Photo Credit to mookio chen on Flickr

Overall, Intro to Technology for Educators was a great course. There were many things I learned that I hadn't known before. These things will definitely help me in my future classroom. I had the opportunity to learn about digital blogs for one. Before this course, I didn't even know how to open a blog. Today I am able to write and participate in having a blog. 

The Collaborative Lesson Plan was one of my favorite assignments this semester. I loved being able to work with a couple others to discuss ideas for our classroom. We ended up choosing to teach our students how to create a scene from The Wizard of Oz after watching the movie. This assignment was a great assignment to be able to think critically to come up with something ideal for our classroom. It allowed us to use technology to interact over Google Docs when we couldn't meet up in person. 

Using the textbook to complete our digital blogposts was very helpful. In a normal classroom setting, students would usually be asked to read information and summarize on paper or even discuss in class. With these blog posts I learned more than how to summarize information from a textbook onto a word document. I was able to learn how to properly link websites to my blog, attach photos and videos, and add cool digital tools! Doing this was such a creative way for me to be able to learn about technology; while using it!

The Web-quest was a difficult assignment for me. I still have trouble with the concept of creating a website. I spent many hours on the website just trying to figure out how it all worked. Even though it was a difficult assignment, I was able to recently go back to my work and realize what I needed to fix. This assignment really challenged my management use with technology, but I would still want to share this activity with my students someday. 

We were able to create a Wiki in this course as well. We created one on a theorist that we were assigned in class. This allowed us to research  We also created one in groups. Each member of the group was given a certain type of learning strategy and we had to discuss it on our wiki page. After each creating our own individual page, we had to come together as a group to create a home page. The home page contained a brief description of everyones topic; but put together. This activity was a great way to communicate with others using technology considering the fact we were only allowed to communicate through the messaging on our Wiki. It was pretty difficult, but they all ended up turning out pretty well! 

I think that our discussion posts were a great way to be able to communicate with our classmates without feeling restricted. It was much easier in my opinion to state our opinions on a given topic through a post. One of the better discussions in my opinion was where we discussed ELL students. It was very interesting to me to view different experiences that my classmates had already experienced in the classroom with these students. We were all then able to go back and view everyone's posts as we wanted and comment on what we felt strongly about. 

This course was very useful and I can honestly say I am so much more knowledgable about the use of technology in classrooms then ever before. I learned about things such as twitter for teachers, smart boards, cool learning apps for tablets, websites to create your own website on, and once again; how to properly blog. I definitely wouldn't have learned these things without taking this course. I am beyond excited to use some of this technology in my future classroom!

Blog Post K

Video Credit to Gabbgorrilla on Youtube

In Chapter 4, I read about how teachers are able to enhance lesson development with technology. Things such as Academic Content, Teaching Goals, and Learning Assessments were discussed.

Teachers are responsible for what they are teaching their students such as facts, concepts, ideas and different skills. This is known as Academic Content. School systems have certain requirements for teachers and what they want them to teach their students. Lesson development must be connected to local curriculum, which are then connected to state and national standards. Things such as using internet search engines, electronic databases, online encyclopedias, blogs or wikis can help teachers research and retrieve information in new ways. 

When teachers try and figure out what it is they want to teach, they usually decide by creating teaching goals, methods, and procedures. Goals are the reason why a lesson is being taught. Methods are the instructional strategies teachers use to convey academic content to students. Procedures are the scheduling and grouping of students by teachers during a lesson and the decision of how much time to spend on each activity. I think this three step method is a great way to keep teachers on track with how and what they are going to teach their students. They can use different methods to help teach such as, large or small groups, discussions, lectures, role-plays, simulations, and even learning games. 

Learning assessments occur before, during, and after teaching lessons and enable teachers to evaluate student knowledge, understanding, and performance. These learning performances can be summative, formative, or diagnostic. I think some great examples of learning assessments using technology are electronic tests, digital portfolios, or online surveys! These will really help teachers get an understanding of what their students ended up learning in class. 

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Blog Post J

Video Credit to robstechpage on Youtube

In Chapter 11 I learned about how students and teachers use technology to assess learning. Several ideas such as Digital Portfolios, Online Surveys for Pre assessments, and Digital Portfolio Resources were discussed in this chapter.

A digital portfolio is a collection of educational and professional materials stored in an electronic format. It's an organized way for both teachers and students to keep their materials to show their growth and development over time. Some things you might find in a digital portfolio could be digital copies of paper materials, videos, audio, Powerpoint's, or photos. I think that digital portfolios are a great idea for students. Especially at a younger age level, it'll be easier for students and parents to look at an entire folder of their work from the school year. This will give them a better understanding of all the improvements they've made over the year. It's also a good way to save to information students learned in class.

Online surveys are an effective way to activate prior knowledge and involve students in the pre assessment process. Online surveys are an easy way for teachers to collect data and document student learning. Pre assessments are usually given before introducing a new lesson or topic. These are given to let teachers know what students already understand about the topic they are about to learn. It helps teachers know what they still have to teach about a subject. I think these are great ideas for the classroom environment. It's a great way for students to anonymously share what they do and do not understand. This way they won't need to feel embarrassed about what they share in the survey, and their classmates will be able to see as anonymous.

A few Digital Portfolio Building Resources discussed in this chapter were TaskStream, iLife, and Apps. TaskStream gives users a variety of different design options. It also includes presentation portfolios, leaning or work portfolios, and resource portfolios. iLife is created by Apple. You can import photos into iPhoto or iMovie and you can add test, titles, keywords and even sound effects. Some Apps listed were Webshots, Issuu, Mixbook, and PikiWiki.

Credit to Katie Conroy using ABC Word Cloud

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Blog Post I

Video Credit to synaurasuccessteam on Youtube

In Chapter 6 I learned about different educational websites and apps that help teach children. Different things such as bookmarking, social bookmarking, and information alerts were discussed. 

Bookmarking refers to the capacity of computers, through a web browser, to remember websites that you visit frequently. With using bookmarks, students are able to electronically log different access pages into a list. This makes it easier for them to go back and access them later on. I believe that bookmarking is a great idea for students to go back and remember what website they found certain information from. 

Social bookmarking is similar to bookmarking. Social bookmarking expands the idea of bookmarking from one person to a community of people using computers. Instead of the websites being logged in privately, this allows for a public list to be displayed so that public readers can see and add to it. I think this is a great idea so that students are able to receive resource ideas they didn't have before. Students can all come together to help give one another sources to view for their same topic of research. Some great Social bookmarking resources are; Delicious, Diigo, netTrekker Search, and Goodreads. 

I also learned about information alerts in this chapter. It is an electronic notice that new information about a topic has become available in some electronic publication format. These alerts are helpful when busy teachers need updates about new online information that is available. This a great idea for teachers because they will be up to date with all of the online teaching information available. 

Photo credit to Katie Conroy using WordCloud

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Blog Post H

Video Credit to SMARTClassrooms on Youtube

This chapter mainly focused on students being able to present and share their research through different digital technologies. Some different computer based technologies discussed were interactive whiteboards, digital voice recorders, and even digital projectors.

With digital projectors, both teachers and students are able to display information through this projector so that the entire classroom is able to view it at once. These will definitely come in handy if students have projects to present to their classmates. It'll allow them to pull up videos, pictures, or even something they created online for the classroom to see. A presentation tool called Powerpoint is a great tool to use when using these digital projectors. Students will have an easier time paying attention in class with being able to view the cool animations and colorful graphics that Powerpoint provides. This idea of presenting information to students through a projector is easier for both teachers and students. Teachers will no longer have to write loads of information on the board!

I think that interactive whiteboards are a great way to keep students excited about their learning! These boards allow students to interact with others in class by simply sitting at their desktop. They also allow students to come up and write on the board virtually! I think it's an awesome way to get students excited about what they would normally do on a chalk board; but on a interactive whiteboard! These boards are also great when it comes to working together as a class and making sure students all get to see the same step by step problems at the same time. I remember having one of these in my classroom a couple years back, and even with an older age group students still get excited about using them in class.

Digital voice recorders are an amazing device for students. With being so easy to use, students can easily listen to these recording and re-cap what happened in class that day. Teachers are able to put recordings of the main ideas they covered in class that day, so that students can go back and listen through it while they are studying or completing their homework. These recordings will be helpful for every student in class, and I think it's a great way for students who need extra assistance in class to get the assistance they need. I know for a fact if my professors put up recordings of what they discussed in class, I would take advantage and use them all the time!

Credit to Katie Conroy using Word Cloud

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Blog Post G

This chapter was very interesting and discussed much information about cool and useful technologies. Some key topics that really caught my eye were Universal Design for Learning, Interactive Whiteboards, and Electronic Spellers and Dictionaries.

While reading about Universal Design, I learned that it's a field of architecture and that it's a new approach to how schools can serve all students well. (UDL) applies recent advances in understanding how the brain processes information to the design of a curriculum that can accommodate broad student needs. (Hall, Meyer, & Rose, 2012; Metcalf, 2010) The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) defined UDL.

• Multiple means of representation, to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge
• Multiple means of expression, to provide learners' alternatives for demonstrating what they know
• Multiple means of engagement, to tap into learners' interests, offer appropriate challenges, and increase motivation

An example was given in this chapter, "A teacher might use PowerPoint to display vocabulary words and definitions on a screen in front of the room so a hearing-impaired child can read the information while the class discusses the terms." I think that UDL is a great way to help out not only hearing-impaired students, but also students who have trouble following along or paying attention. UDL will give students endless ways to be able to follow along with information, even if they are a tiny bit behind. 

Interactive Whiteboards were also discussed in this chapter. This whiteboard is simply mounted on a classroom wall and connected to both a computer and a projector. With these boards, both teachers and students are able to access their computer monitors on this with just the touch of a finger. So basically anything that you would normally see on a computer screen can be shown blown up on this board. These white boards are useful in helping visual, auditory, and hands-on learners. I think that these Interactive White boards should be on the wall of every classroom. It's such a great way to present information to students so that they are able to easily see and view it. 

Electronic spellers and dictionaries should be used in every classroom. This device would be very useful for beginning readers. They help with correcting spelling, listening to words aloud, and checking the accuracy of spelling. This device would be very useful to students who are learning English for the first time. Headphones can be plugged in so students are able to listen to words they need help understanding or spelling. I remember having one of these devices in elementary school. I was never a good speller, and these little devices would always prepare me for my spelling tests every week! They are such a great idea for students!!

Video Credit to FranklinElectronics on Youtube

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Digital Blog Post F

Video credit to Jason B. Lucas on Youtube

Chapter 8 discussed the different strategies of communicating and collaborating with social media. This chapter focused on many helpful electronic communication tips, creating blogs for students and teachers, and even twitter for teachers!

Social media allows students and teachers to easily communicate with one another after school hours. Some key ways of communication are email, teacher or classroom websites, blogs, online discussions, and wikis. Teachers are able to create websites that their students can view daily to check information about a certain class. I think that's a great idea because teachers can make it easy for students to remember what the given assignments were for each day of the week. Another great way to communicate is by blog. I think it's a great idea for teachers to assign students these "online journals" to reflect their learning in the classroom.

Blogging is a fun and easy way to help get students interested in their learning. It's a free and inexpensive way to get students communicating through technology. One way of blogging can be considered creating a class website. This type of website is devoted to the educational activities of teacher and a classroom. Class websites focus on students and their work. Students are able to publish their work and become interested in certain subjects and topics being taught in class. I think this is a very great way to get students thinking and to help them begin to create more of a creative and proactive mindset. These websites are very helpful when it comes to homework assignments, dates for exams, schedules, and school events being posted for students to view! More teachers should allow their students to get creative and be apart of online blogging in and out of the classroom!

A cool topic discussed in Chapter 8 was Twitter for Teachers. Some may not know, but Twitter is a microblogging site where individuals share information with friends and colleagues also known as their followers. Each post made it only allowed 140 characters, this is why it's considered microblogging. Twitter allows teachers from all over to follow one another and share their classroom information using hashtags. These hashtags organize information around similar topics being discussed by each post. Hashtags such as #engchat and #engtalk for language arts or english classes were discussed. These hashtags allow students from all over to actively post about different topics regarding their english or language art classes. I think Twitter may be a little bit too advanced for the classroom right about now. I think there should definitely be an age requirement for the use of Twitter so that teachers won't have to be so worried about their students using it as much. Other than the safety factors of Twitter, I think it's a great way to get interactive feedback about different subjects in the classroom!

Photo Attribution to Katie Conroy on Canva

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.